1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a work vehicle including: a seat disposed between front wheels and rear wheels; an engine disposed between the right rear wheel and the left rear wheel rearward of the seat; an air cleaner; and a battery.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a motor part is disposed between the right rear wheel and the left rear wheel rearward of the seat positioned between the front wheels and the rear wheels, there is no need to provide a space for disposing the motor part frontward of the seat, and thus a large space for a drive part is advantageously secured frontward of the seat in a vehicle body.
Prior art techniques that have adopted such a structure include, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-178782 (see paragraph [0017] and FIGS. 9 and 10), and United States Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0019539. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-478782 describes a work vehicle having a body frame includes: a rear frame positioned on a rear side at a height level higher than that of a floor face of a drive part; and a front frame disposed frontward of the rear frame so as to support the floor face of the drive part. An engine and a transmission case are supported by a support frame below the rear frame of the body frame, and an air cleaner is exposed on a lateral outer side of the vehicle body, in a lateral side portion frontward of the engine and the transmission case.
In the conventional work vehicle described above, the air cleaner is disposed laterally outside of a motor part which is positioned at a low height level from the ground. In order to prevent sand, dust and mud water on a running road or the like from entering an ambient air intake opening of the air cleaner, the ambient air intake opening is positioned at a high height level from the ground, in an upper portion of a lateral outer cover positioned laterally outward of a driver's seat. In other words, though the air cleaner itself is positioned at a low height level laterally outside of the motor part, the ambient air intake opening of the air cleaner is positioned at a high height level so as to face an intake hole disposed in an upper portion of the lateral outer cover, and ambient air is introduced to the air cleaner through an intake duct.
This configuration has an advantage that clean ambient air can be introduced from a high height level while the air cleaner is disposed at a low height level near the engine utilizing an empty space in the motor part. However, a number of parts, such as parts of the intake duct, will be increased in order to position the ambient air intake opening at a high height level. In addition, a number of steps, including removal and attachment of the intake duct, in addition to the removal of air cleaner, will be increased upon exchanging an element.
Moreover, like the air cleaner, the installed battery device is required to be protected from dust and mud water, and thus is generally disposed in a space formed below the seat or below the truck box positioned in the rear portion. In this case, every time the maintenance and inspection of the battery is performed, the operation of opening the seat, or the operation of dumping of the truck box should be performed, increasing the operation step number during maintenance and inspection.